Today's fluid ejection devices, such as inkjet printers, can deliver impressive print quality at reasonable costs. Users are increasingly using their inkjet printers for creating high-resolution prints, such as digital photographs. Manufacturers of inkjet printers are constantly trying to meet the ever-increasing demand for better print quality.
One way to improve print quality is to increase the range of color intensity that is utilized to print an image. Having a wide range of color intensity allows the production of printed images with more color variations and smoother color transitions. Conventional inkjet printers typically use a color set of a few base colors (e.g., cyan, magenta, yellow and black) and an ink reservoir for each base color. One technique for varying the intensity of colors in an area of a printed image is to vary the size and the number of ink droplets in that area. However, the color intensity variation produced by this technique is limited.
Another technique of obtaining a wider range of color intensity is by using two or more reservoirs for each color where each reservoir contains ink with a different color intensity. Because more ink reservoirs are required, this technique significantly increases the mechanical complexity, cost, and the maintenance requirements of the printer. In particular, users are required to monitor and, when necessary, replace multiple ink reservoirs.
Thus, there is a need for a printing system that is capable of producing prints with a wide range of color intensity without unduly sacrificing the resolution of the prints or significantly increasing the system's mechanical complexity and maintenance requirements.